The left plays offense

The central premise of communism, social democracy, American progressivism and other variants of leftism is that the distribution of wealth under capitalism is unjust.

The left's aversion to economic inequality is thus a consequence of its assumption that such inequalities are artifacts of capitalist exploitation--whatever level of inequality exists at any point in time is unacceptable and must be addressed by a form of politics that moves us closer to equality of condition or outcome.

The current fixation with income inequality, reflected in the Bernie Sanders campaign and now dutifully taken up by Hillary Clinton's, is sincere but also misleading--were that trend somehow reversed and inequality substantially reduced the complaints would be no less vociferous, rooted in the underlying assumptions and goals of the ideology itself.

Whereas old left communists sought to combat inequality by fomenting violent revolution and thereafter collectivizing the means of production under "dictatorships of the proletariat," contemporary social democrats and American progressives discard the violent revolutionary part in favor of policies that move us incrementally toward the same goal of a classless society, if only because there is no logical stopping point at which the left can consider its work done.

A crucial corollary, flowing from the notion of capitalist oppression and injustice, is that people are helpless victims of forces beyond their control; that where we end up in life isn't a consequence of our effort or ability (or lack thereof) but simply luck or fate.

President Barack Obama has been particularly fond of such formulations, although most likely ignorant of their ideological provenance.

For Obama, success in life seems to amount to little more than winning the lottery or buying the candy bar with the golden ticket. As he typically put it in a commencement address this past spring, "That's a pet peeve of mine: people who have been successful and don't realize they've been lucky. That God may have blessed them; it wasn't nothing you did."

Apart from the bad grammar, George Will noted that Obama's sentiments nicely reinforce the progressive agenda: "Government must comprehensively regulate, redistribute and generally fine-tune society in order to engineer 'fairness' to counter life's pervasive and pernicious randomness ('luck')."

Leftism is not only built on such sentiments but requires their widespread embrace for perpetuation as a belief system. In Will's words, "Progressives understand that their program for a government-centered society becomes more plausible the more people believe that work--individual striving--is unavailing. Government grows as fatalism grows, and fatalism grows as progressivism inculcates in people the demoralizing--make that de-moralizing--belief that they are the victims of circumstances."

If your success wasn't due to your own effort and ability, there should be no moral objection to the state taking what you have and giving it to someone who hasn't been as "lucky" in the life lottery; an assumption upon which is built the redistributionist welfare state.

There are four obvious advantages to such an approach toward politics and public policy.

First, it provides an almost irresistible electoral dynamic, as people are encouraged to see themselves as victims and to blame their problems and failures on others. Electoral appeals can consequently pander to people's wants and desires, often disguised in the language of rights and in the name of justice. The buying of votes with promises of "free stuff" becomes an integral part of the leftist playbook.

Who after all, doesn't like Santa Claus more than the guy at the bank demanding collateral for your loan?

Second is a certain built-in absolution for any policy failures: If a massive welfare state reduces economic growth, creates multigenerational welfare dependency, and magnifies the ranks of the impoverished by encouraging family breakdown, then the resulting devastation can be pointed to as evidence of the need to do more in the name of compassion and social justice. The cure remains the cure even if it doesn't work and might have made the disease worse. Besides, it's intentions, not results, that count.

Third is the ability to highlight and target for state succor an endless array of grievances: Since human beings aren't perfect, and the perfection of human societies therefore impossible, there will always be causes with which to rally the faithful and demand new programs and spending. Indeed, the more grievances are satisfied the more glaring become those that remain; as long as we fall short of perfection, the left gets to keep the ball.

Last is the moral aura that can be acquired via association with the left and its various crusades. Leftism allows the leftist to impress upon others his greater moral enlightenment and sensitivity, to gain the moral high ground by seeming to care more than the rest of us.

Those who resist or express even modest reservations (maybe about national debt that now exceeds our GDP) can also be conveniently cast into the moral darkness, accused of selfishness and greed, along with sexism, racism, and other forms of bigotry.

They want to throw grandma into the snow and let little kids starve, don't they?

It all works wonderfully, until it doesn't. And we become Venezuela.

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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial on 08/22/2016

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